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Why Did Aztec Warriors Try to Capture Cortés Instead of Killing Him?

Dwarkesh Patel says Aztec warriors tried to capture Cortés instead of killing him because their wars were built around taking victims for sacrifice, and that habit threw away the chance to finish him.

Cortés was knocked off his horse and left on the ground. Warriors moved to seize him for a sacrifice rather than kill him where he lay, and he got out. Si Sheppard agrees that Aztec fighting aimed to capture, not to kill, and that there were times when Cortés was in their hands and his companions still pulled him free because the captors were hauling him off. Status came from bringing captives back to Tenochtitlan. Prisoners even had a rank: four Totonacs were worth one Chichimec, because the Chichimecs to the north fought more fiercely.

Patel adds two other habits that made large armies brittle. Generals wore so much decoration that cavalry could spot them, ride straight at them, and kill them, after which a force that might number 100,000 could rout. At Cuzco, attackers let a couple hundred Spaniards rest at night instead of keeping up the attack or rotating fresh troops. The societies were organized around war, and adult men were trained as warriors. The religious reward for a live captive is the part Sheppard says could not be redesigned in the short time of the conquest.

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Si Sheppard – How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires? ·

Dwarkesh Podcast

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  5. Why Did Moctezuma Let Cortés Into Tenochtitlan?Si Sheppard says letting Cortés into Tenochtitlan was Moctezuma's best option, whether the emperor saw it that way or not.
  6. How Did Cortés Take Moctezuma Prisoner?Si Sheppard says Cortés used a coastal attack as the pretext to put Moctezuma under Spanish custody, and that once he held the emperor he held the empire.
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  10. How Fast Did Cortes Conquer the Aztec Empire?Si Sheppard says Cortes took over the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico in two and a half years, with a couple hundred men against an empire of six million…
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